Thunderbolts 2025
This looked like a fun, but maybe overly dark Marvel movie, maybe similar to Guardians of the Galaxy's sequels. These are Marvel castoffs, struggling with their own demons and wanting to be more super than they know how to be. That's a reasonably good idea. For years now, Marvel has built up the character Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) and this is finally the payoff to that. I don't really buy that character that much, dabbling too much in political stuff that Marvel just can't pull off. She is still good in her part. The group of superheroes is underwhelming, led by Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russell, and David Harbour, but quirky and endearingly flawed, like in Black Widow. They don't do a great job of developing the characters, the jokes aren't great, and the action is fairly subdued for a Marvel movie, so nothing stands out, but the movie is still entertaining enough and not as dark as I feared. It is also not as cartoonish as Brave New World was so this ekes out a low B.
Written: 06 May 2025